Welfare Reform on the Web (November 2005):
Social Housing - Overseas

From housing to home: reflexive management for those deemed hard to house

P. Gurstein and D. Small

Housing Studies, vol.20, 2005, p.717-735

The Portland Hotel Services Society in Vancouver aims to promote,
develop and maintain supportive affordable housing for the most
marginalised and excluded groups, such as drug addicts, people with
HIV/AIDS, sex workers, and criminals. Their approach places the
tenant's right to housing as primary. People are never evicted,
however bad their behaviour. Paper argues that the housing environment
for Portland Hotel residents is more than shelter and offers the
comfort and security of a home. For this population, services need
to be designed around people, rather than people fitting into services.